Update: Firmus Explores a Private Round of Up to US$3 Billion After Withdrawing Its ASX Listing, Bloomberg Reports; Partner DayOne Keeps Working on a Bond

Corrected October 12, 2026: The October 9 afternoon section previously credited Maas Group's fall of nearly 11% to Reuters' report on the withdrawal. The figure comes from a separate Reuters story on Maas published the same day, and the line now cites that story.

Updated October 9, 2026, afternoon: Bloomberg reports that Firmus is exploring a private round of up to US$3 billion, and that its Batam partner DayOne is still working on a bond. The new section directly below covers it, with Reuters' account of why the deal failed; the October 9 morning section (heading now marked "morning") and the earlier updates follow, otherwise unchanged.

Updated October 9, 2026: Firmus has withdrawn its ASX listing application and says it will pursue private capital. The new section directly below covers it; the October 8 afternoon and morning sections, the October 6 Southgate update and the October 5 allocation report follow, unchanged except that the October 8 morning section no longer says Maas Group's 22% fall came on Thursday morning; The Nightly's revised report no longer gives that timing.

Updated October 8, 2026, afternoon (Sydney): Firmus’s IPO documents were reportedly withdrawn from the data room used by fund managers, and bankers were reported to be considering pulling the deal. The new section directly below covers it; the October 8 morning section, the October 6 Southgate update and the October 5 allocation report follow, unchanged.

Updated October 8, 2026, morning: Firmus’s IPO book-build has reportedly closed without enough demand at A$11, and bankers were reportedly working to save the float at about A$8.25 a share, according to reports citing unnamed sources.

Updated October 6, 2026: Firmus and CDC Data Centres have confirmed that their Project Southgate partnership, the Australian rollout that was to reach 1.6 GW, is over at about 42 MW. The October 5 IPO-allocation report follows, unchanged.

October 9, afternoon: a private round of up to US$3 billion, and DayOne's bond#

Firmus has a number for its next raise, according to Bloomberg. Firmus Grid "is exploring a private funding round to raise as much as $3 billion after the collapse of its planned initial public offering," Bloomberg reported on Friday evening, Sydney time. We saw only Bloomberg's headline and summary. The figure is Bloomberg's, in US dollars, and is not converted here; Firmus has not confirmed it. Bloomberg's report does not, in what we saw, name investors, a valuation or a timetable.

What Reuters adds about the next step and the failure#

Reuters, in its report on the withdrawal (read via a syndicated copy), adds details from people involved in the deal:

• Nasdaq, per one person: Firmus said it would opt for a private fundraising round, and a person involved in the transaction said that would be followed by a Nasdaq listing. Firmus declined to comment on whether it would target Nasdaq. That is a second unnamed-source account of the Nasdaq plan, after the AFR's in the morning section below; the company has not confirmed either.
• The shareholder letter: Reuters quotes co-founders Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield, in a letter to shareholders, saying the company will "pursue capital from private markets and consider alternative international public market options to support its next phase of growth." The board statement quoted by AAP in the morning section says "alternative public and private market options"; the shareholder letter, as Reuters quotes it, says "international."
• Why orders went: investors started to pull orders on Wednesday after CDC Data Centres chief executive Greg Boorer told a podcast that its plan to develop 1.6 gigawatts of AI factories with Firmus was no longer underway, two people involved in the IPO told Reuters. Investors also balked after being told on Tuesday that escrow arrangements would have let existing investors sell more than half the stock from day one. (The Southgate update and the term-sheet escrow figures are further down this page.)
• A price cut was considered: Firmus considered cutting the issue price but chose to pull the deal and look to a private round, one person told Reuters.
• Maas Group shares fell nearly 11% on Friday after the withdrawal, touching a five-month low, Reuters reported in a separate story.

DayOne still wants to borrow#

Bloomberg, in a story carried by The Edge Malaysia, reports that DayOne Data Centers, the Singapore-based operator developing Firmus's first data centre project in Batam, Indonesia, has been in preliminary talks with banks for weeks about a potential US$500 million bond offering, according to people familiar with the matter. The people said DayOne intends to push on even after Firmus dropped its Australian IPO.

• Citigroup is the lead arranger, and DayOne could go to market as early as next year, the people said. Proceeds would go to project financing; Bloomberg had no detail on which project.
• The Firmus IPO proceeds would have funded GPU purchases for the Batam project, which Firmus is developing with DayOne as part of an eight-year partnership with Nvidia, Bloomberg reports.
• DayOne filed for a US IPO earlier this week and has been considering raising around US$5 billion, according to Bloomberg; that is a size under consideration, not filed terms.
• Representatives for DayOne and Citigroup declined to comment.

Taken together, the afternoon reports point the same way as the morning statement: Firmus's next money is expected to come from private investors, and the Batam project's partner is pursuing a bond alongside its own planned US listing. Apart from the Maas share move, every figure in this section comes from unnamed people familiar with or involved in the deals.

October 9, morning: Firmus withdraws the listing#

The float is off. On Friday morning in Sydney, Firmus said it had withdrawn its application to list on the ASX, ending what the ABC described as set to be the biggest Australian float since Telstra in 1997, and what AAP and Capital Brief called set to be the second-largest. The company’s statement, as quoted by AAP, reads:

"Having considered recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions, the board determined that the terms on which the offer could proceed would not appropriately reflect the strength of the Company’s business and long-term growth outlook. The board therefore concluded that proceeding with the Offer was not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders. Firmus will now pursue capital from the private markets and consider alternative public and private market options."

Capital Brief gives the source as a Firmus media release; we did not find the release on Firmus’s own newsroom page, so the wording here is as the outlets quote it. The ABC quotes the company adding: "We will provide additional information to shareholders as those options progress." Reuters, via CNA, carried the same private-markets line.

What the AFR adds#

The AFR reports that Firmus "will attempt to list on the Nasdaq next year," and that bankers and co-chief executives Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield will initially try to land another private investment round from Nvidia and other existing investors. We could read only the opening paragraphs of that paywalled report. The company statement itself mentions only "alternative public and private market options," not Nasdaq or a timetable, so the Nasdaq plan is the AFR’s reporting, not a company disclosure.

The deal that was withdrawn, by outlet#

Outlets still describe the size of the abandoned raise differently:

Investors on why it failed#

UniSuper chief investment officer John Pearce told the ABC the outcome was disappointing: "The ASX needs new stories and this could have been one if it was correctly priced." He told the ABC that UniSuper, which had decided not to invest directly, was doubtful because of the valuation: "At the current valuation, it's priced to perfection." He added: "Furthermore, we're quite concerned that Firmus will have to keep coming back to the market for a lot more debt and more equity to fund its expansion plans."

The ABC also carried Morningstar senior market strategist Lochlan Holloway’s note from Thursday. "The neo-clouds are heavily geared," he wrote. "The model is to borrow against customer contracts to buy chips, then use the rent to repay the loans." The ABC reported that, once its data centres are built, Firmus expects to carry about US$30 billion (A$43 billion, in the ABC’s conversion) of debt, about six times the US$5 billion of operating earnings it forecasts for 2028.

The withdrawal settles what Thursday’s reports pointed to, without a cut-price listing first. It leaves the questions that sank the deal open rather than answered: what Firmus is worth before most of its planned data centres exist, and how much more debt and equity it will need. A private round, if it happens, would on the AFR’s account be priced by Nvidia and other backers that already hold the stock; the AFR’s Nasdaq plan would put the business back in front of public investors, on a timetable Firmus has not confirmed.

October 8, afternoon: documents pulled, deal in doubt#

By Thursday afternoon in Sydney the question had shifted from what price Firmus would list at to whether it would list at all. Around lunchtime, the heavily watermarked prospectus and investor presentation were withdrawn from the virtual data room provided to fund managers, AFR’s Street Talk reported, as bankers tried to shrink a raising the AFR put at A$7.9 billion. In a later piece, the AFR said bankers had “veered from discussing the need to rework the float, cutting the company’s market capitalisation, to considering pulling the deal altogether.”

Bloomberg, in a report carried by The Edge Malaysia, said the book-build had closed as scheduled on Thursday morning “without clear indication of the price or the deal structure,” according to people familiar with the matter, and that a Firmus representative didn’t respond to a request for comment. The ABC reported that Goldman Sachs was “reportedly tapped to rescue the float from collapse at midday”; Goldman told the ABC it had no comment. Firmus has made no announcement about price, size or timing.

The raise, by outlet#

Outlets describe the size of the deal differently, and the figures are not on a common basis:

Bloomberg said the A$11 price implied a valuation of A$43.7 billion; AAP and the ABC give it as A$44 billion.

Maas Group and the ASX#

Shares in Maas Group, a 3.2% Firmus shareholder and a supplier to the company, fell as much as 30% in Sydney, the most on record, according to Bloomberg. AAP reported the shares plunged more than 20% to A$4.96, a more-than-two-month low. Responding to a query from the ASX, Maas attributed the slide to market speculation and commentary about whether the IPO would proceed, AAP reported. Bloomberg quoted Maas noting “significant market speculation and commentary” and saying it was not aware of any undisclosed information that would explain the recent trading.

The ABC added two details. Firmus was not listed on the ASX’s “upcoming floats and listings” page; the ABC noted that the page records only listings for which a formal application has been received and is usually updated within three business days, so an application may still have been lodged. And late on Wednesday, Firmus representatives pulled out of an appearance before a parliamentary inquiry into artificial intelligence scheduled for Thursday, with reports linking the no-show to the troubled IPO. The ABC said the listing was still scheduled for October 23.

Losing the documents from the data room is a sharper signal than this morning’s talk of a lower price: it suggests, on these reports, that the offer as marketed is no longer the offer. Bloomberg named Singapore’s DayOne Data Centers and London’s Nscale among Firmus peers with potential multibillion-dollar deals in the pipeline, and set the struggle against a recent wobble in investor sentiment toward AI-infrastructure fundraising, as some investors questioned the pace of borrowing and spending. But there is still no withdrawal notice, no final price and no statement from Firmus.

October 8, morning: the book reportedly closes short#

The float AFR’s Street Talk had described as heading toward the biggest in a generation is now, on these reports, failing at its planned price. On October 7, Street Talk reported that bankers had begun discussing a cut to the A$11 offer price after overseas demand fell short. By Thursday morning in Sydney the book had closed and, according to Street Talk, the syndicate had worked overnight to save the float, with pricing talks moving toward about A$8.25 a share. Brokers told investors only that advisers would “provide further information.”

The Sydney Morning Herald, reporting mid-morning on October 8, called the float “on life support.” It said institutional bids had been due by 9am Thursday and that multiple outlets had reported shares being offered at around A$8 on Wednesday in a last-ditch attempt to save the deal. Firmus was contacted for comment by the SMH; no change to the offer has been announced.

A person familiar with the deal told the SMH that shares held by three of Firmus’s best-known backers, Nvidia, Blackstone and Coatue, are not subject to escrow. That bears on the October 5 allocation report below. The Nightly reported that shares in Maas Group, a 3.2% Firmus holder with A$855 million of Firmus construction contracts, fell 22%, from A$6.39 to A$4.96. Per The Nightly, Firmus’s pathfinder prospectus, distributed to prospective investors this week, forecasts about US$13 billion of revenue and US$5.8 billion of EBIT in 2029 from seven data centres.

A cut from A$11 to about A$8.25, roughly a quarter, on a float once tipped as the biggest in a generation would be read well beyond Sydney: as a measure of how far public investors will go on AI data-centre valuations built on 2029 forecasts and a handful of anchor relationships. Until Firmus or its brokers announce terms, the final price, raise size and listing date are all open, and the deal could still be repriced, resized or pulled.

October 6: Southgate ends at about 42 MW#

CDC chief executive Greg Boorer told Rampart on October 5 that CDC would not proceed with the planned 1.6 GW rollout with Firmus and is unlikely to build new data centres for it. Southgate ended with about 42 MW deployed, roughly 2.5% of what was announced. Boorer said Firmus had “made other choices regarding doing their own data centre developments, which is slightly different to what we envisaged” (quoted by W.Media and the Sydney Morning Herald).

Firmus confirmed it on the record the next day. “Firmus and CDC mutually agreed earlier this year not to proceed with the previously proposed Southgate development partnership,” co-chief executive Oliver Curtis told W.Media. “The decision does not affect Firmus’s current development plans, contracted customer capacity, disclosed strategy or important international partnerships.”

Firmus’s growth story has moved to Southeast Asia, where it has announced GPU-capacity deals with Meta and dedicated capacity for OpenAI at two Malaysian AI factories. Firmus says the OpenAI deal took its contracted capacity above 900 MW (W.Media).

The Australian build-out that made Firmus Australia’s home-grown AI-infrastructure story is now mostly gone, just as it lists. Firmus says its contracted capacity is unaffected, and that may be true. But IPO buyers are now paying for Asian AI factories and Nvidia’s backing more than a national rollout. The split was agreed “earlier this year,” and it is not clear whether the offer documents investors have seen describe it. The October 12 prospectus is where to check.

October 5: the IPO allocation#

The clearest public-market price yet for a non-U.S. AI-factory operator is also a float-tightening exercise: about half the book goes back to people who already own the stock.

Two people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on October 5, 2026 that Firmus, the Sydney-headquartered AI data-centre and modular “AI factory” operator, plans to allocate about half of its initial public offering — including the over-allotment — to selected existing strategic and financial investors. Bloomberg reported the allocation detail first; that Bloomberg original was not inspected for this piece. Firmus has previously named Nvidia, Coatue, Blackstone and Jane Street among its investors. Firmus told Reuters it had “no comment or further detail to provide at this time.”

The money, in the currencies Reuters used#

Per a term sheet Reuters reviewed (first in an Oct. 1 pricing story, then again on Oct. 5):

Indications of interest already exceed the offer, one of the people said. Bookbuilding starts Tuesday; banks now expect the institutional book to close Thursday, a day earlier than the Friday close in the term sheet. Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Morgans are leading. It would be Australia’s second-largest IPO after Telstra (1997).

How to read the jump#

Firmus was valued at about $10.5 billion post-money after a $2 billion strategic equity round in August, when Nvidia and Coatue followed on and Blackstone and Jane Street participated. Reuters’ ~$30.6 billion equity figure is roughly a tripling in two months. Handing half the IPO — including the greenshoe — to existing strategic and financial holders tightens the free float and can flatter early trading. It also deepens Nvidia’s pattern of financing its own infrastructure customers. The ~$60 billion enterprise-value line is equity plus a bank-analyst debt estimate, not a firm’s audited balance sheet, and the prospectus is not out yet.

Limits#

• October 9, afternoon: Bloomberg's Firmus report was seen only as its headline and summary; its DayOne report was read in full via The Edge Malaysia's syndicated copy, and Reuters' withdrawal report via a syndicated copy on WIKY, checked against a later version carried by Euronext. The US$3 billion round, DayOne's bond and the reasons orders were pulled all come from unnamed people. Firmus has not confirmed the round size or a Nasdaq listing. No currency conversions are made; The Edge's ringgit conversions are not used.
• October 9: the company statement is quoted as AAP, the ABC, Capital Brief and Reuters (via CNA) carry it; we did not find the original release on Firmus’s newsroom page, and Firmus was not listed, so there is no ASX company announcement to cite. The AFR’s Nasdaq and Nvidia-round details come from a paywalled report of which only the opening paragraphs were read. A Wall Street Journal report on the withdrawal could not be loaded and is not cited.
• October 9: raise sizes are as each outlet gives them (A$7 billion, A$8 billion) and are not reconciled.
• October 8, afternoon: the data-room withdrawal and “considering pulling the deal” come from the AFR, which is paywalled; only the opening paragraphs of both AFR pieces were read. Bloomberg was read via The Edge Malaysia’s syndicated copy, not bloomberg.com. Goldman Sachs’s reported role is the ABC’s “reportedly”; Goldman told the ABC it had no comment, and Firmus has not addressed it.
• October 8, afternoon: raise sizes are as each outlet gives them (A$7.9 billion, US$5.5 billion including greenshoe, about A$7 billion) and are not reconciled here.
• October 8, morning: every detail after the A$11 price comes from unnamed sources. AFR’s Street Talk is paywalled and only its free previews were read; the SMH and The Nightly were read in full. Bloomberg’s term-sheet report was not read directly and is cited via the SMH.
• No final offer price, raise size or listing date had been announced when this update was written.
• Southgate: Boorer’s quotes come from Rampart’s interview, which we could read only in part. They are quoted here via W.Media and the Sydney Morning Herald. The AFR’s report (Melbourne 150 MW) was paywalled and is cited via W.Media.
• Firmus says the split doesn’t affect contracted capacity; we have no independent view of its contracts.
• Allocation plan rests on two unnamed sources to Reuters; Bloomberg broke it first but was not re-read here.
• Both pricing and allocation stories are Reuters (different reporters) — not independent corroboration of each other.
• Reuters gives the valuation as about US$30.6 billion; the SMH converts the same A$43.7 billion to US$30.3 billion. The gap is the exchange rate used, not a different valuation.
• ~$60 billion EV depends on an analyst ~$30 billion debt estimate.
• Prospectus due Oct. 12 — term-sheet figures are pre-prospectus.

Sources#

• Bloomberg: Firmus Explores $3 Billion Private Round After IPO Flop (October 9, 2026; headline and summary only)
• The Edge Malaysia (Bloomberg): DayOne in early talks with banks for potential US$500 mil bond (October 9, 2026)
• Reuters via WIKY: Nvidia-backed Firmus scraps $5 billion Australia IPO amid growing AI scrutiny (October 9, 2026, Sydney)
• Reuters via The Outpost: Firmus investor Maas falls after AI data-centre operator pulls blockbuster IPO plan (October 9, 2026; excerpt)
• Reuters via Euronext: Nvidia-backed Firmus scraps $5 billion Australia IPO amid growing AI scrutiny (October 9, 2026; later version)
• AAP: Hero to zero: AI factory pulls stock exchange listing (October 9, 2026, AEDT; the same page carried “AI factory firm’s $7b IPO looks doubtful” on October 8)
• ABC News: Data centre operator Firmus pulls blockbuster ASX float after lacklustre demand (October 9, 2026, AEDT)
• Capital Brief: Firmus withdraws $8b ASX listing, seeks private funding (October 9, 2026, AEDT)
• CNA (Reuters): Australian NVIDIA-backed AI data centre operator Firmus shelves IPO (October 9, 2026)
• Australian Financial Review: Firmus to pursue Nasdaq float after failed ASX listing (October 9, 2026, AEDT)
• Australian Financial Review (Street Talk): Firmus pulls down deal docs as bankers try shrinking $7.9b IPO (October 8, 2026, AEDT)
• Australian Financial Review: Firmus’ float on the precipice as investor scepticism grows (October 8, 2026, AEDT)
• The Edge Malaysia (Bloomberg): Nvidia-backed Firmus said to close books as IPO struggles (October 8, 2026)
• ABC News: Data centre company Firmus tries to save its mega share market float as interest underwhelms (October 8, 2026, AEDT)
• Australian Financial Review (Street Talk): Investors in Firmus Technologies IPO pull back as bankers scramble to salvage $7.9 billion listing (October 8, 2026, AEDT)
• Australian Financial Review (Street Talk): Firmus IPO offer price faces cut after overseas investor interest falls short of expectations (October 7, 2026)
• The Sydney Morning Herald: Firmus float in trouble as investors don’t buy the hype (October 8, 2026, AEDT)
• The Nightly: Firmus shareholder Maas Group plunges 22 per cent on reports of big cut to $44 billion valuation (October 8, 2026, AEDT)
• W.Media: Firmus and CDC end Project Southgate partnership after 42MW rollout (October 6, 2026)
• The Sydney Morning Herald: Firmus, Australia’s great AI hope, just hit a speed bump (October 6, 2026)
• Rampart: Firmus, CDC axe Southgate partnership (October 5, 2026)
• Reuters via StreetInsider: Australia’s Firmus to allocate half of up to $5.5 billion IPO to existing investors, sources say (October 5, 2026)
• Reuters via MarketScreener: Australia’s Firmus prices shares to raise $5 billion, term sheet shows (October 1, 2026)